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308Modelling the Moral Dimension of DecisionsNoûs 44 (3): 503-529. 2010.In this paper we explore the connections between ethics and decision theory. In particular, we consider the question of whether decision theory carries with it a bias towards consequentialist ethical theories. We argue that there are plausible versions of the other ethical theories that can be accommodated by “standard” decision theory, but there are also variations of these ethical theories that are less easily accommodated. So while “standard” decision theory is not exclusively consequentialis…Read more
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148Integrity and the Fragile SelfAshgate. 2003.This book examines the centrality of integrity in relation to a variety of philosophical and psychological concerns that impinge upon the ethical life.
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139Agent-based Theories of Right ActionEthical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (5): 505-515. 2006.In this paper, I develop an objection to agent-based accounts of right action. Agent-based accounts of right action attempt to derive moral judgment of actions from judgment of the inner quality of virtuous agents and virtuous agency. A moral theory ought to be something that moral agents can permissibly use in moral deliberation. I argue for a principle that captures this intuition and show that, for a broad range of other-directed virtues and motives, agent-based accounts of right action fail …Read more
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139Goodman and Putnam on the making of worldsErkenntnis 58 (1). 2003.Hilary Putnam and Nelson Goodman are two of the twentieth century's most persuasive critics of metaphysical realism, however they disagree about the consequences of rejecting metaphysical realism. Goodman defended a view he called irrealism in which minds literally make worlds, and Putnam has sought to find a middle path between metaphysical realism and irrealism. I argue that Putnam's middle path turns out to be very elusive and defend a dichotomy between metaphysical realism and irrealism.
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106Integrity, commitment, and indirect consequentialismJournal of Value Inquiry 39 (1): 61-73. 2005.
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83Metaphysical realism and idealisationPhilosophia 26 (3-4): 465-487. 1998.Hilary Putnam's famous model-theoretic arguments have the virtue of presenting metaphysical realists with a clear challenge. On pain of embracing either an implausible antifallibilism or the radical indeterminacy of reference, metaphysical realists must appeal to metalinguistic levels of interpretation richer than our own in order to fix meaning. And sense must be made of this appeal. In this paper I begin the task of developing a version of metaphysical realism that takes up this challenge.
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76Realism and Epistemic Theories of TruthSouthern Journal of Philosophy 39 (4): 473-486. 2001.This paper explores the relation between epistemic conceptions of truth and different kinds of commitment to realism and antirealism. It argues that all epistemic conceptions of truth are versions of antirealism. Although epistemic conceptions of truth can make various concessions to realist intuition, these remain concessions only. One cannot concede all claims to antirealism and remain within the orbit of a genuinely epistemic conception of truth
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75Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching MoviesWiley-Blackwell. 2011.An introduction to philosophy through film, _Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies_ combines the exploration of fundamental philosophical issues with the experience of viewing films, and provides an engaging reading experience for undergraduate students, philosophy enthusiasts and film buffs alike. An in-depth yet accessible introduction to the philosophical issues raised by films, film spectatorship and film-making Provides 12 self-contained, close discussions of individual f…Read more
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72“I am not living next door to no zombie”: Posthumans and PrejudiceCritical Philosophy of Race 4 (1): 74-94. 2016.Posthumanist film and television is both a vehicle for reflection on discrimination and prejudice and a means of gratifying in fantasy deeply imbedded human impulses towards prejudice. Discrimination lies at the heart of posthuman narratives whenever the posthuman coalesces around an identifiable group in conflict with humans. We first introduce the idea of prejudice as a form of psychological defense, contrasting it with other accounts of prejudice in the philosophical literature. We then apply…Read more
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60The trouble with truth-makersPacific Philosophical Quarterly 78 (1). 1997.This paper argues that theories of truth which seek to specify the ontological ground of true statements by appealing to an ontology of truth‐makers face a severe and possibly insurmountable obstacle in the form of logically complex statements. I argue that there is no apparent way to develop an account of logically complex truth within the confines of a modest and plausible ontology of truth‐makers and to this end criticize independent attempts by Armstrong and Pendlebury to develop such an acc…Read more
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59Violinists Run Amuck in South Dakota: Screen Doors Down in the Badlands!Philosophical Papers 35 (2): 267-281. 2006.Re-Reading: Judith Jarvis Thompson, 'A Defense of Abortion'
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56On the value of natural relationsEnvironmental Ethics 19 (2): 173-183. 1997.In “A Refutation of Environmental Ethics” Janna Thompson argues that by assigning intrinsic value to nonhuman elements of nature either our evaluations become (1) arbitrary, and therefore unjustified, or (2) impractical, or (3) justified and practical, but only by reflecting human interest, thus failing to be truly intrinsic to nonhuman nature. There are a number of possible responses to her argument, some of which have been made explicitly in reply to Thompson and others which are implicit in t…Read more
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53Three problems for the evolutionary debunking argumentRatio 36 (1): 41-50. 2023.In attempting to debunk moral realism through an appeal to evolutionary facts, debunkers face a series of problems, which we label the problems of scope, corrosiveness, and post‐hoc justification. To overcome these problems, debunkers must assume certain metaphysical or epistemological positions, or otherwise pre‐establish them. In doing so, they must assume or pre‐establish the very conclusion they seek in advancing the argument. This means that such debunking arguments either beg the question …Read more
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51Believing BadlyPhilosophical Papers 33 (3): 309-328. 2004.This paper explores the grounds upon which moral judgment of a person's beliefs is properly made. The beliefs in question are non-moral beliefs and the objects of moral judgment are individual instances of believing. We argue that instances of believing may be morally wrong on any of three distinct grounds: (i) by constituting a moral hazard, (ii) by being the result of immoral inquiry, or (iii) by arising from vicious inner processes of belief formation. On this way of articulating the basis of…Read more
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44Welcome to Su: the spectral universityAngelaki 21 (2): 213-226While some may argue that universities are in a state of crisis, others claim that we are living in a post-university era; a time after universities. If there was a battle for the survival of the institution it is over and done with. The buildings still stand. Students enrol and may attend lectures, though most do not. But virtually nothing real remains. What some mistakenly take to be a university is, in actuality, an “uncanny” spectral presence. The encompassing ethico-philosophical question i…Read more
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41Judgment, Deliberation, and the Self-effacement of Moral TheoryJournal of Value Inquiry 46 (3): 289-302. 2012.ExtractIn developing moral theories, philosophers seek to fulfill at least two tasks: to guide moral judgment and to guide moral deliberation. In moral judgment, moral agents assess moral status. In moral deliberation, moral agents decide how to act. It is important to work out how these two things are related. One suggestion is to posit a direct connection between them according to which moral agents are required to deliberate in terms of correct moral judgment. There are various ways of spelli…Read more
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39Scepticism and the InterpreterPhilosophical Papers 29 (2): 61-72. 2000.Abstract This paper defends an argument from interpretation against the possibility of massive error. The argument shares many important features with Donald Davidson's famous argument, but also key differences. I defend the argument against claims that it begs the question against scepticism and that it leaves the sceptic with an obvious means of escape
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347 Avatar: Racism and Prejudice on PandoraIn Dan Flory & Mary Bloodsworth-Lugo (eds.), Race, Philosophy, and Film, Routledge. pp. 50--117. 2013.
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34Judging CharacterAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 50 (4): 387-398. 2013.A lot is at stake in character judgment. How we treat others is influenced by what kinds of persons we take them to be. Our rational plans of life depend upon our insights into our own character and the character of those close to us. Given the importance of the way we judge character, the virtues and vices of character judgment deserve much closer attention than they have received in the philosophical literature. Some philosophers have discussed duties of friendship and how they impact upon the…Read more
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34Integrity and the Virtues of Reason: Leading a Convincing Life, written by Greg ScherkoskeJournal of Moral Philosophy 13 (5): 627-630. 2016.BOOK REVIEW Extract: Integrity, it seems, is a matter of remaining true to oneself, or rather, it is a matter of remaining true to what one reasonably judges to be the best of oneself. In Integrity and the Virtues of Reason, Greg Scherkoske seeks to overturn this piece of conventional wisdom. It is a fine book and I learned a lot from it. Scherkoske elaborates and defends the idea that integrity is an epistemic virtue; that it is not fundamentally a matter of being true to oneself but of being a…Read more
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32Between death and suffering: resolving the gamer’s dilemmaEthics and Information Technology 25 (3): 1-9. 2023.The gamer’s dilemma, initially proposed by Luck (Ethics and Information Technology 11(1):31–36, 2009) posits a moral comparison between in-game acts of murder and in-game acts of paedophilia within single-player videogames. Despite each activity lacking the obvious harms of their real-world equivalents, common intuitions suggest an important difference between them. Some responses to the dilemma suggest that intuitive responses to the two cases are based on important differences between the acts…Read more
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32Philosophy of emotion Volume 2Philosophical Psychology 32 (6): 992-999. 2019.Volume 32, Issue 6, August 2019, Page 992-999.
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30In this chapter I use a film by the Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Le Fils, to explore the difference between Stoic and Anti-Stoic approaches to overcoming victimhood. The Stoic approach to overcoming victimhood emphasizes the inner-strength and resourcefulness of victims. It sets up an ideal of Stoic independence in which a person responds to becoming a victim by marshalling inner resources to overcome destructive and painful emotions. An Anti-Stoic approach to overcoming vict…Read more
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26Integrity and the UniversityPhilosophy of Management 23 (1): 109-124. 2024.This paper examines the idea of the integrity of academic practice. We offer an account of the integrity of professional practice in general before applying it to academic professional practice within the contemporary, western university. We then introduce the concept of integrity traps and explain how they can make it difficult for academics working within a contemporary university environment to maintain their integrity.
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26Competition, contest and the possibility of egalitarian university educationJournal of Philosophy in Schools 6 (1): 10-25. 2019.Competition and contest underpin academic life in many ways, not all of them constructive or valuable. In this paper I make a start on the task of distinguishing valuable academic competition from its opposite and suggest reforms of academic institutions that would diminish the prevalence of destructive competition and approach more nearly the egalitarian goal of treating all members of the academic community—especially, but not only, students—as equally valued and equally deserving of respect. …Read more
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25Reflections in a MirrorDiametros 41 1-12. 2014.In this paper, I develop a solution to the puzzle of mirror perception: why do mirrors appear to reverse the image of an object along a left/right axis and not around other axes, such as the top/bottom axis? I set out the different forms the puzzle takes and argue that one form of it – arguably the key form – has not been satisfactorily solved. I offer a solution in three parts: setting out the conditions in which an apparent left/right reversal of mirror images is generated; explaining why thes…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Normative Ethics |
Value Theory, Miscellaneous |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Normative Ethics |
Value Theory, Miscellaneous |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Aesthetics |